Riding the road to success

Page Tools

Allan Davis is out to continue the Australian success on the roadsPhoto: Getty Images

A few years ago at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, former
professional road rider Neil Stephens was asked to round up the
most prominent Australian road cyclists in town for a group
photo.

Stephens did so, and made sure two youngsters - Michael Rogers
and Allan Davis - were included, much to the puzzlement of those
organising the photo shoot, who said to Stephens: "Yeah, but we
want the good ones."

Now, there would be no such argument. Rogers is a two-time world
time-trial champion, while Davis' steady improvement resulted in
fifth place at last year's world road race championship.

A crude elbow thrust from Italian Luca Paolini almost tumbled
Davis into the barrier during the frenetic sprint to the line and
robbed Davis of what Stephens believed should have been "definitely
third, perhaps second".

The 24-year-old Davis, from Bundaberg, has quietly garnered
respect as a rising star in world cycling as one of the young men
who will continue the entrenched tradition of Australian success on
the roads of Europe. It is an expectation that the softly spoken
and laid-back Queenslander easily bears, simply because "you need
high goals".

Of those, Davis has plenty, and it is not merely starry-eyed
ambition, for he is recognised as being eminently capable of
capturing his dreams of a Tour de France stage win, a world
championship or a one-day classic.

Today, along with O'Grady, he is considered as a favourite for
the Australian men's road championship in Echunga, South
Australia.

"It would just be great to win a stage of the Tour (de France)
and I've got a really burning sensation to win one of them and a
World Cup would be nice, too," Davis said. "You need high goals and
they're really high goals."

For today's 182-kilometre race, Davis was uncertain of his "race
condition", having done plenty of quality training miles but with
few races under his belt as he enjoyed his off-season by getting
married.

As much as Davis grows in strength as he matures in a physically
demanding sport, it is his keen perception on the bike as well as
his all-round skills that form the foundation for his growing
success. "His race sense is his biggest talent apart from his
physical attributes," said Stephens, who lives in the same Basque
village of Oiartzun with Davis and has been a close friend and
mentor for the past two years. "Allan can read a race better than
anybody.

"The smartest sprinter in Australia is Robbie McEwen. The things
he does . . . are just amazing. The way Stuart O'Grady reads the
pan-out of a race . . . is also amazing. In my opinion, Alby is a
bit of a mixture of both of those and he should aspire to be as
good as Stuey throughout the day but be just as smart as Robbie at
the finish.

"What I think would be a mistake for Allan is to put him into a
hole, a category, because Allan's a bit of an all-rounder."

What it all encapsulates is the solid strength that Davis simply
wants to nurture to fruition. "I went into last year trying to
improve on the year before and that's all I stuck to the whole year
in training and racing, and I'm going into this year with exactly
the same thoughts," he said.